


Finish What Was Started

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e16 California 47th
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-26
Updated: 2003-04-26
Packaged: 2019-05-31 03:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: 'I should be out there right now...'





	Finish What Was Started

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Finish What was Started**  
**by:** Kasey

**Character(s):** Will  
**Category(s):** POST-EP: Ca47  
**Rating:** YTEEN **Disclaimer:** Don't own 'em. Etc. Don't sue. Yada yada.  
**Summary:** "I should be out there right now..."  


This is my campaign. 

Not technically anymore - the White House Deputy Communications Director (and may I just take another minute to say wow about that one?) doesn't have time to run a campaign, but I'm saying... 

I started this. Actually Horton Wilde did, but as he's not here anymore I've gotta be the one to carry on. That's what I did the first time around, it's what I should be doing now. 

I'm just saying, win or lose, whatever happens to Sam out there... it's partly my doing. 

So why the hell am I back here while everyone else but Leo goes out to see him? Of all of them, I would be best equipped to handle things out there - I would be able to tell them exactly what the numbers mean...which isn't to say, of course, that they don't have professional pollsters who can do things, Joey Lucas is incredible at reading breakdowns, but...I could tell them how it translates, what those numbers mean in terms of the district and what exactly Sam would have to do to make up what he's losing. 

I'm starting to regret having told him to have Scott as his manager - he's screwing Sam over pretty good. And I mean that with all possible respect, of course - or at least all the respect one could give a horse's ass. 

He's just-...what the hell is he *thinking*? For crying out loud, you don't have Sam sidling up to big business, that alienates the few liberals you've got out there - you put him with union reps but have him talking about responsibility in employment so you don't turn off too many moderates. 

But if you lose your base support, you're dead in the water. The bet with a Democrat running in Orange County is that he can carry what few democrats there are, as well as some of the moderate republicans who are turned off by the extreme right orientation of Chuck Webb. If you don't even take the Democrats with you, the moderates'll look over and see "This guy's a *joke*" and put up with Webb because they have to. 

Dammit, I should be OUT there right now. They're flying into my home turf, yet here I am, trying to write speeches with interns. 

Toby's a better writer than I am anyway, especially when it comes to reworking language that's already there, drop-ins...all of these are things at which he is better than I. Plus Toby, while I understand his fraternal love for Sam, isn't exactly the guy I'd want running my campaign, given his record, to say nothing of the fact that he doesn't know Orange County. If I was running in the Bronx, I'd call Toby up pretty quickly, but I'm saying it's an entirely different kind of politics that go on out there. 

Which is why I should be out there on the trip with them right now. Because you don't put him at city club meetings, you put him where he can do some good, not just serve a mediocre political operative's personal agenda. 

Instead I sit here with four interns who like to make up lies about being able to dance and who, while full of candor, cannot write - that's why they're interns, not on the payroll. 

Catfish Canning? Who takes that literally? 

...I should be in the warm weather right now...helping finish what I started. 

Instead, I'm...finishing what Sam started, I guess. And he's finishing what I started. 

Wonder how that'll work out. 


End file.
